Climate and Crime
violent offenses, social interaction theory, ambient temperature, geographic resolution
Abstract
Few issues provoke as much public concern as violence. Persistent variations in the homicide rates of different countries have led sociologists, criminologists and geographers to question why violence, and lethal violence as an extreme example, is more common in some societies than in others. This paper focuses on one possible explanation: climate, and especially temperature. The analysis is based on monthly crime, temperature, relative humidity and precipitation data of 62-year period (1952 to 2013) of Allahabad city, India. Results show that temperature has a significant positive impact on criminal behavior, and murder incidences in Allahabad city were high in hot months. Relative humidity too seems having significant and positive influence on crime rate, while rainfall showed a negative correlation with crime pattern. Results reveal that climate-crime association follow a linear relationship and crime rate increases with rise in temperature.
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2015-01-19
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